Details on how industrial robots are retasked in the automotive industry

    I am looking for information on the process of retasking a robot in the automotive industry (assembly). These robots perform the same tasks over and over and I'm trying to find out how and how long it takes to retask them to perform new tasks. If someone has or is working in the automotive industry, please share your knowledge and if possible, some papers.

    I work for a major producer of automotive robotics (one of the "big four") and in my experience the average cost of a cell is around $100k-$250k and the average cost of the robot and controller system is $30k-$50k. The moral of that story is a much larger portion of the cost of a robotics cell is the integration and task development, so the cost benefit of reusing the robot after it has been beat to hell in another application is low.


    Thankyou

    Well, the key insight would be to avoid "beating the robots to hell", and creating your cells and lines in such a way as to facilitate future alterations. But the major automotive manufacturers have historically ignored this in favor of "cramming" their automation in both space and time.

    hi uzi. Retasking a robot depends on the process equipment integrated and the application software available in the robot system. Automotive manufacturers has big global contracts with robots vendors. At big volumes, the cost of each single robot is about the half. The hardware and software installed from factory are customized, vw uses kuka vkrc controller instead the regular kuka krc, toyota uses kawasaki T-controller, and so on. You must pay attention to the payload and reach of the arm. In some applications like material handling, its posible integrate a robot from a diferent process with a re-engineering.

    Hey Uzi15,


    Working for a large automotive company in Canada, we repurpose/retask old robots all the time. Because we do this so often, you are correct, the money saved in repurposing a robot seems relatively low when looking at the scope of the whole cell project. However, from my experience with large companies, because of the amount of times they do these cell upgrades that "relatively low" saving becomes quite substantial.


    As far as the process of retasking, for us, it begins with an appraisal of the current system. Controller, drives, robot hardware etc are all assessed to be allowed to be repurposed. The last thing you want to do is commission a new cell only for the robot to last a few months before it needs another overhaul. This is where we have been sending our robots for refurbishment. This can be costly. Depending on the condition of the robot/controller, this can almost cost as much as a new robot. I would recommend going with a trusted 3rd party robotics company to do the refurb instead of going with the manufacturer to save on cost. I repeat, ONLY IF THEY ARE A TRUSTED COMPANY. In total this process can cost anywhere from $0 (Considering the robot is in perfect condition) - $35k (For refurbish cost). Consider you spend $25k opposed to $50k for a new robot and controller and you repeat this for 100 cells over time. Eventually it becomes very profitable. Saving tens of thousands of dollars over time. Eventually, robots will have to be replaced but this kind of "recycling" I have found to be prevalent among larger companies.


    Cheers.

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